DEA-C02 Data Governance Practice Question
What is the primary purpose of a 'Secure View' in Snowflake from a governance perspective?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often think Secure Views improve query performance through caching, whereas their primary purpose is strictly security and obfuscating underlying view definitions.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
To hide the underlying view definition and schema metadata.
A Secure View is designed to prevent users from seeing the underlying logic or source data of the view, even if they have been granted select access. By hiding the view definition and internal metadata, organizations can expose specific data subsets to external partners or internal teams without risking the disclosure of proprietary business rules or underlying table structures that might contain sensitive information.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
To increase the performance of complex joins.
Why it's wrong here
Secure Views are generally slower than standard views because the optimizer is restricted from performing certain query rewrites. They are explicitly designed for security and data abstraction, not for performance optimization. Using them for performance would be counterproductive to the goal of efficient data processing.
- ✓
To hide the underlying view definition and schema metadata.
Why this is correct
Secure views provide a layer of obfuscation where the view definition and internal query structure are hidden from all users except those with specific ownership privileges. This prevents users from reverse-engineering the logic used to create the view, which is a key requirement for secure multi-tenant or external data sharing.
- ✗
To automatically mask PII in the output.
Why it's wrong here
While you can manually write CASE statements within a view to mask data, 'Secure View' functionality itself does not automatically mask PII. Dynamic Data Masking is the correct feature for automated masking based on user roles, whereas secure views are for metadata and logic concealment only.
- ✗
To allow users to modify the base tables.
Why it's wrong here
Views are primarily for reading data. Secure views do not provide write access to base tables; in fact, they further restrict access to the underlying metadata. Allowing users to modify base tables through a view would defeat the purpose of data governance and security, which is to restrict access.
About these practice questions
This DEA-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 229-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Snowflake exam blueprint
This DEA-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Snowflake certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DEA-C02 exam.